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Falcon Blue, book six of The Child of the Erinyes, was the only book of the series not already drafted when I began publishing. I didn’t intend to write this story at all: my plan was to merely allude to it in other books. But after finishing The Sixth Labyrinth, I realized this story had to be told. For one thing, it’s the first reincarnation after the explosive, tragic events in the Bronze Age, as told in books 1-3, The Year-god’s Daughter, The Thinara King, and In the Moon of Asterion. That in itself makes it important—and there is more. The story of Falcon Blue as it was shared in The Sixth Labyrinth was a lie, and the record had to be set straight.

I had already written and published books detailing two of my triad’s lives, and I refused to add another unless it contributed a unique value to the series that no other book could. I’m happy to report that after much contemplation, months of research, and countless ever-changing outlines and drafts, I wrote a story that did what was needed. In fact, everything—the entire series—hinges upon the events in this book. So that’s kind of cool.

Plus, though this book turned out to be number six in the series, it can be read straightaway after the first three books without missing a beat, without any confusion, and, much like C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles, in linear fashion. His Magician’s Nephew was originally book six of that series, but it can be read as though it is book one: perhaps that’s why they started marketing it as such, although for me, it will always be book six, since that’s how I first read the Chronicles as an eleven-year-old. It’s due to Lewis that I felt comfortable leaping backward in time from The Sixth Labyrinth, set in Victorian Scotland, to the early 500s AD.

When I began researching the setting for Falcon Blue, I was surprised and rather dismayed to discover that the early medieval period (at least in Scotland) is a dark, dark place. Well, yeah, I know—I should have been prepared, since until recently, it was known as the Dark Ages. I honestly thought there would be more knowledge about this period than there was about my previous Bronze Age settings, but that was not the case. By the time I was committed, too far in to retreat, I realized this was not going to be easy or quick. Not that researching the Bronze Age Mediterranean was easy exactly, but I would argue that I had more information at my fingertips than I could find in a year of researching the early medieval period. When seeking the details I needed for this story, I came up against wall after wall, contradictory information, patchy details, and downright disagreement.

Carloway broch, Isle of Lewis, courtesy of Lewis MacDonald

One of the first things I was sure I wanted for the story was the tower—a round tower—for the main place setting in the story, a fort I call Dunaedan, in the Cape Wrath area. I ran into problems pretty quickly. Apparently there were no towers in Scotland in this era, even though there were ruins of round towers from earlier periods—brochs—some of which can still be viewed to this day.

Thank goodness my work is historical fantasy instead of straightforward history. There may not have been any round towers in northwest Scotland in the year 502 AD, but there is in my story. More problems arose as I worked on the specifications of the tower. See, it’s kind of special. My tower has two staircases—one that leads from the feasting hall in a spiral through the center, up seven floors to various chambers, but there’s another staircase no one who lives at Dunaedan knows about. It’s hidden in the outer walls, and provides access to each level—each room—through seven disguised doorways.

There are tons of castle cutaways online. With their help I was able to imagine, form, and develop this unique structure. To see some, click here.

Of course, having secret doorways meant I had to figure out how those worked. So I put on my engineer hat and studied cantilevers and latches that would make it possible to open and close these doors soundlessly and in a small space. Typical—the Irishman named Aedan in the book got the credit for all these marvels of engineering! Here are some secret doors that inspired me.

The initial title of Falcon Blue was The Black Wolf of Dál Riata. As I always do when I am choosing a title, I went off into the mists of Google-land to see if this title was already in use. Well it wasn’t…then. It is now. That exact title appeared on another book as I was editing Falcon Blue. Whew! So glad I decided against it for other reasons. When I switched to falcon titles, I saw very quickly that this, too, was going to be a bit of a problem. There are many books—maybe hundreds—titled some form of “Blue Falcon.” But as of this moment, there are no other books called Falcon Blue.

About the cover: The warrior image was provided by the amazing artist, Eve Ventrue, whose work can be seen here. I bought the image (and two more) before I even started writing Falcon Blue, because the ideas for it were swirling around in my brain and I knew this image would meld well with the story. I don’t know if any of my readers have ever noticed, but there is a pattern to the covers. Three stories, each story part of an internal trilogy, each one leaning a little more towards one of the three characters. That character is portrayed on the cover. Book one has Aridela, book two has Chrysaleon, and book three has Menoetius on the cover. When the triad enters the middle trilogy, we see the same characters with their new faces: Aridela/Lilith on the cover of The Moon Casts a Spell, Chrysaleon/Aodhàn on the cover of The Sixth Labyrinth, and Menoetius/Cailean on the cover of Falcon Blue. We at Erinyes Press manipulated the warrior image for Falcon Blue off and on for two years while the tale grew. We added color, texture, standing stones, the glowing eyes, and the wolf as they developed. I have a comparison at my website showing Eve’s originals and how they changed.

Vita the wolf was a later addition. Initially it was a human warrior who was being hailed as “The Black Wolf.” There was no actual wolf. When the title changed to Falcon Blue, I naturally wanted the protagonist to have a pet falcon. But falcons just aren’t the same as dog-like creatures. They’re very cool, but I wanted a companion who could have an almost spiritual bond with the warrior. At first, Vita played almost no part in the adventures. But she grew and grew and grew in the course of the evolving story until she almost stole it. I absolutely fell in love with that mystical, mythical, personable wolf!

One of the most interesting and unexpected things I discovered while researching, after I had already written scenes of convicted criminals being put to death by “cliff,” was “The Judgment Stone.” East of the town of Durness there is, or was, a place called Ceannabeinne. One of the legends attached to this place is the “Clach a Breitheanas,” or “Judgment Stone,” where ne’er-do-wells were tossed off the cliffs to their deaths. I thought I had made that idea up, but apparently not.

In Falcon Blue, the inhabitants of an isolated island refer to the lands around them as The Dominion of the Seventh Age. This title morphed through so many iterations I can hardly remember them all, as did the name of the actual island itself, which began, for convenience, as The Other Place. You know, one of those holding names you use until you can come back and give it your full attention. I wanted to use The Seven Kingdoms for the countries outside of the island, but soon realized this was pretty much copyrighted by George R. R. Martin! More ideas came and went—The Sand Kingdom, The Lost Kingdom, The Water Kingdom, the Cloud Kingdom, The Kingdom of the Seven Mountains…blah blah blah. Finally, The Dominion of the Seventh Age stuck. As explained in the book, it encompasses our seven continents and an ancient legend.

Speaking of seven, I realized while I was editing Falcon Blue that the number seven was coming up again and again and again, not only in this book but throughout the series.

Here are a few examples:

Cailean (In Falcon Blue) promises to return seven foals to the breeder who sold him horses.

Bharosa is seventeen hands high: he was the seventh foal to be born in Britain after the purchase of the stallions and mares.

The seventh and final door in Dunaedan’s tower is Eamhair’s bed chamber.

When a human girl sheds seven tears into the ocean, a seolh (selkie) will come.

Seven men, including Cailean, sail off to find the escaped criminal, Taranis.

Seven days pass before Cailean regains consciousness after being injured in the sea.

The Dominion of the Seventh Age: legend claims the world will exist for seven ages, and in Falcon Blue, the world is smack in the middle of the seventh age.

Bericus promises to spend seven days on his knees asking forgiveness for what he does to Eamhair.

Aridela is told she will live seven lives. (Or labyrinths).

On the island in Falcon Blue, once every seven years a human is offered instead of a ram.

Last but not least, a quote from Robert Graves in The Greek Myths: “The number seven acquired peculiar sanctity, because the king died at the seventh full moon after the shortest day.”

This all happened organically, without any planning on my part. For that reason, I suspect these occurrences were inserted by my muse, Athene—for what reason, I don’t yet know.

She offered no help when it came to choosing the name of the new character introduced in Falcon Blue—or did she? She sure let me know when name after name, so promising at first, had to be rejected. Excitement soured into disappointment then into despair, over and over and over again, for literally years. This was one of the very last problems keeping me from publishing; the one dilemma I could not seem to solve.

Finally, it came to me, quite by accident, as I was reading about something else—the life of Kronos.

Gaia, Mother Earth, wanted her younger children to attack their father Ouranos for what he had done to their older children. With the aid of an adamant sickle she provided, Kronos and his brothers and sisters defeated Ouranos; the blood from his severed genitals created the Erinyes: Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera.

Well, something led me to that article, and when I began researching and learned more about the name that sprang out at me, I knew it was “The One.”

I’d best say no more about that.

I hope to have Falcon Blue available in paperback before the end of the year. Happy reading!

the first reincarnation

Falcon Blue is LIVE!

Find it worldwide at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes and Kobo: it’s also in stock at Indigo and Angus & Robertson. The paperback is now live as well! Paperback version can be purchased at Amazon, The Book Depository, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, and anywhere else that carries real books.

I know… it’s a little unusual, making the first awakening of my triad after Crete, number SIX in the series. But early in life I was inspired and influenced by C.S. Lewis, who did something similar with his Narnia Chronicles. Did you know that originally, The Magician’s Nephew was Book Six of that series? For those who haven’t read them, The Magician’s Nephew was a prequel to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

So here I go, emulating a great writer in my own little way. And yes, all of the above is a load of doo-doo.

Truth is, I didn’t intend to make Falcon Blue part of my series. I was going to go along in linear fashion, 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7. But as I kept on writing, developing the story and the goal, I realized it had to be included. Interested readers had to see the beginning–the beginning after the beginning, I should say.

So, TA-DA, Falcon Blue was germinated, watered, nurtured, and has now been birthed.

IF YOU HAVE READ THE FIRST THREE BOOKS IN THE SERIES, YOU CAN READ FALCON BLUE WITHOUT MISSING A BEAT!

The first three books are: The Year-god’s Daughter, The Thinara King, and In the Moon of Asterion.

Aodhàn Mackinnon told the story of Eamhair, Cailean, and Taranis in The Sixth Labyrinth.

He lied.

Here is the truth.

Seeking escape from the brutality of war, Cailean journeys to the wilderness at land’s end, but instead of peace and solitude he finds conspiracy, evil, and a love that makes any sacrifice worthwhile.

When Eamhair was young, her sibylline mother predicted a king would rise out of the sea and take her away from her father and brothers. She walks the cliffs, dreaming of a new life and the lord of the seolhs.

Taranis succumbs to the relentless lure of a vision, chasing it all the way to his destiny at the outer boundaries of the earth.

Cape Wrath, Scotland. The first reincarnation.

Mist shrouds our eyes and stoppers our tongues, a grey, damp silence broken only by the softest sigh, like a dawn breeze. We know not how many centuries pass: we feel not the flow of time, until She turns her far-seeing gaze to us.

When we gasp and draw our first breath, we are newborns who never fought great wars, or loved deeply, or brought harm upon one another.

To celebrate a consequential birthday and the release of this book that has taken so many years to complete, I’m discounting The Sixth Labyrinth for the last week of its pre-order period and a week after. It will go live on April 8, 2016: now through April 15, you can get it for $2.99 (regularly $4.99). Links to pre-order are below the graphic.

Worry not: all of you who have already pre-ordered it will get it for this special price!

Barnes & Noble won’t allow us to set up a pre-order, but Nook readers will still get The Sixth Labyrinth at its sale price after it goes live, through April 15th. HERE is my author page, which will have The Sixth Labyrinth as soon as it’s released. Mark your calendars!

The Sixth Labyrinth

Arriving in 2 weeks!

Athene’s Handmaid, by Melissa Conway

Finis… or in other words, The End. A sublime combination of words I was beginning to doubt I would ever be able to type, but all edits have at last come to “The End.” It took so much longer than I expected, but I do believe I made the right choice to go through The Sixth Labyrinth one last time. I feel certain this will result in a smoother, more pleasant read.

Thank you to my beta readers… my editor… my copy editors… the cover image artist… and my Gaelic speakers. This was a Team Effort that was years upon years (upon years) in the making.

Cover talk: As soon as I saw this image by Eve Ventrue, I knew it was perfect. It was Chrysaleon, in every way. Angry, somber, and defiant, after three millennia of being reincarnated, forced to suffer the loss of the woman he loves, over and over again. He is deeply scarred, and I think that shows in every inch of this face.

The image is unfinished: Chrysaleon, too, is unfinished.

But this story is not just Chrysaleon’s. It is Aridela’s. It is Menoetius’s. And it is Selene’s and Themiste’s. All have reunited in 1870s Scotland.

The Sixth Labyrinth is Book Four in The Child of the Erinyes series.

Winter, 1853. Every home in the village of Glenelg is burned, the residents deported or left to starve.

Douglas Lawton refuses to put his family on the refugee ship, though his wife is in labor. She dies giving birth to a daughter whose paternity will always be questioned.

These mountains in the remote West Highlands of Scotland offer a backdrop to the continuing story of three lives linked through time. A silenced but enduring goddess has seen her place in the souls of humans systematically destroyed, but she bides her time. For Athene, thousands of years mean nothing.

Framed within the Clearances that ravaged the Highlands, one woman struggles with the restrictions placed upon her, and all women. Her buried psyche is that of a queen who possessed unlimited power, yet here, she is little more than a scullery maid.

For thousands of years two men have fought for the heart of Athene’s daughter. Will either triumph? What are the consequences of winning? Ancient prophecy is unfolding, leading our triad into the shadowed corridors of The Sixth Labyrinth.

The island in the Mediterranean nowadays called Santorini has had many names throughout the centuries. One of the oldest known names, and the one I use, is Callisti. In ancient Greek, it means “The Most Beautiful,” and is alternately spelled Kalliste.

Thera, yet another name long used for this volcanic island, can be translated as “Fear,” which, as it turns out, was rather prophetic, as is the name of the central mountain, rumored by some to be Alcmene, meaning “Wrath of the Moon.”

For many years, until “super” volcanoes were more clearly understood, this eruption was considered the worst in human history. It was so enormous, so destructive, (categorized as a Plinian type event) that it made the eruption of Tambora look like a tiny belch in the earth. It would have made the Mt. Saint Helen’s eruption seem like nothing more than a brief, sleeping baby’s gasp.

As scientists become more adept at studying the effects of volcanoes, (and it’s impressive how much they’ve learned about the Santorini volcano, even though it happened so very long ago), they have conjectured that the repercussions of this event went clear around the world, and probably affected the earth’s climate for many years. From the depth of the ash on the sea floor, they have determined that the worst damage done to Crete, a mere seventy miles away, was on the east side. With improved methods and the study of more recent eruptions, there are now conjectures that the pyroclastic flow (the most dangerous, murderous part of an eruption) could very well have traveled on top of the water clear to Crete. The idea that such a thing could happen is amazing, and is merely theory, not proven. But that’s how huge this eruption was. Tsunamis of course came along after, and devastated the entire coast; there are theories that the tsunami which struck the northern coast managed to flow clear into the city of Knossos. Charles Pellegrino, in his book Unearthing Atlantis, says: “Within hours of the Theran upheaval of 1628 BC., death rolled into southern Turkey on the tongue of a tsunami. Two peninsulas jutting into the Aegean Sea confined the wave as if between the prongs of a mighty tuning fork, building it higher and higher and ultimately funneling it thirty miles inland. To penetrate so far, it had to be eight hundred feet tall when it hit the shore.” (Pellegrino, C. Unearthing Atlantis. New York: Avon, 1991)

One small bit of positive news: recent theories state that most of the populace on Santorini actually managed to escape the island before it blew into the heavens, leaving nothing but a sliver (part of which is again beginning to send out ominous messages). The volcano gave them warning, and they apparently heeded this warning. Since Callisti is considered by many to be an outpost of Crete, it’s no leap of logic to assume most of the refugees would go there, and that’s what happens in my book.

As awful as this eruption was, it did not end Cretan society. I have no doubt many died of the aftereffects, like starvation, ash suffocation, etc. But the Cretan civilization did eventually recover. Yes, these intrepid, hardy people managed to survive and even thrive again after this indescribable event. But at some point, later, the wondrous Bronze Age society of Crete (or Kaphtor) did disappear. This segment of my series offers one possible reason why, sets the starting point for the later books, and initiates a more familiar history—one that might never have occurred had Crete survived, retaining its original power and influence.

From everything Plato said about Atlantis, there is no doubt in my mind Thera is that fabled place.

Here is an excerpt from deep within The Thinara King.

Twilight fell. Chrysaleon made a fire from dead olive branches. The last glow of the sun transformed grey clouds to scarlet and lavender, with hints of green and yellow. Beneath this magnificence he constructed a pyramid of stones and shot an unwary hawk from the sky. He burned its thighs in offering and knelt beside his cairn, clenching the necklace in his fist.

“Poseidon,” he said. “Walk with me. Lead me to Aridela. Make our bond unbreakable. Help me slay Harpalycus and bring an end to the king-sacrifice.” He peered into the heavens. “Make me this great-year-king, Horse Tamer, and I will present you with the rich island of Crete. I will cover this land with temples and fill each one with your image.”

A sudden gust of wind sent a fan of sparks into the indigo sky.

Taking it for the answer he wanted, he wrapped himself in the cloak Neoma had given him. “Bring Aridela home,” she had begged, clutching his arm. “I miss her. I don’t think she even knows I’m alive.” The stone that struck her during the worst of the Destruction had left a noticeable depression in her forehead, like a large, out-of-place dimple, and ongoing headaches forced her to spend time in darkened seclusion nearly every day.

He stared at his fire, thinking of Aridela, longing for her. A memory crept before him, one he’d forgotten, from his time near death in the cell at Labyrinthos.

In his starved, thirsty mind, he’d experienced a vision of Menoetius transforming into a black bull, the enormous bad-tempered kind Cretans used in their ring. The beast gored him and as he lay gasping, his lifeblood seeping away, Aridela came to stand beside the bull, resting her hand on his neck in an intimate manner. She had looked down upon Chrysaleon without any emotion.

“No,” he’d whispered, and he did so again now, fury raging through his blood as he gazed into the cold night sky. “Menoetius won’t defeat me.”

He fell asleep at last, but during the night’s blackest point, he was awakened by the earth shuddering. Small creatures scurried; rocks lurched and tumbled. His horse shied and nickered. Farther away, he heard ominous, eerie echoes as an avalanche of boulders crashed into one of Crete’s many precipitous gorges.

He stared into the night towards the mountains, aching to be among them.

For time beyond memory, Crete has sacrificed its king to ensure good harvests, ward off earthquakes, and please the Goddess. Men compete in brutal trials to win the title of Zagreus, the sacred bull-king, even though winning means they’ll die in a year.

Two brothers from predatory Mycenae set out to thwart the competition and their deaths as they search for exploitable weaknesses in this rich, coveted society.

Hindering their goal is the seductive and fearless Cretan princess, Aridela, an uncommon woman neither man can resist, and ancient prophecies, which predict that any threat to her people will spark Goddess Athene’s terrible wrath in a calamity of unimaginable consequences.

******************************

The sequel to The Year-god’s Daughter is now available as well, and Book Three, In the Moon of Asterion, will arrive soon.

The Thinara King

Book Two

Goddess Athene’s white-hot rage incinerates the isle of Callisti and inflames the seas. Crete is left in ruins.

Ash, earthquakes and tsunamis devastate Crete. The will of the survivors fades as the skies remain dark and frost blackens the crops. Aridela must find a way to revive the spirit of her people along with rebuilding her country’s defenses.

More threats loom on the horizon. Greek kingdoms see a weakened Crete as easy prey. And now Chrysaleon, he who carries the ancient title of Thinara King, feels the shadow of Death over his shoulder.